Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Life's Distractions

We all have our distractions in life that keep us balanced. What is yours? Is it finding an hour with a good book? Or maybe spending time at the mall for some retail therapy? Or getting lost in the kitchen creating a new dish?

My distraction is running. I.love.to.run!

Running makes me feel alive, reminds me of how strong I am, makes me a better wife and mummy, allows me to think up design ideas, lets me eat yummy food and wine, shows my kids that living healthy and active is fun and makes me free in the wind.

I haven't been a "life long" runner. In 2001, I had a summer job that didn't start until 11am and I needed something to do on a beautiful summer morning. So, I decided to start running. I had always worked out and played sports - skiing and long distance swimming had been my thing as a teenager so I thought...running, no problem.

Ha! Running for 15 minutes left me winded, tired and defeated. However, it was only the beginning of the summer and I was up for the running challenge.

Three marathons, two half-marathons and various shorter races later...running and I have become close friends. In fact, we can't live without eachother.

I'm not crazy fast, I don't obsess about what foods I eat, I don't measure my run elevations (yup, there are people who do that) or measure the amount of wear on my running shoes but, I do...

wear a GPS watch to monitor my pace and distance, I've met really great running friends and love a good mental and physical challenge.

I love to run through various neighbourhoods in Ottawa to get design ideas for beautiful landscape gardens, seasonal ideas for my front door and exterior paint colours. Your neighbours have done some great things to the exterior of their homes, check them out!

A few weeks ago, we participated in the Ottawa Race Weekend. Mr. Fix-it ran the 10km, my dad power walked and ran the 5km and I did the marathon. Race weekend is an amazing time to witness inspiration from runners and walkers and hear incredible stories about people who have faced many of life's challenges.

The marathon is a long race to run, so naturally you meet a few people along the way to pass the time. One of my favourites was this guy that ran up along side me and said "Huh!" I said, "what"? He looks at me and says "I've never seen anyone run a marathon in pearls!" It totally cracked me up because I had totally forgot to take them off before the race. He's right, I'm not sure I've seen anyone run that far in pearls either?!

This is about 30 seconds after I crossed the finished line. Looking pretty rough and tired but on such a high! If you look closely, you'll see the pearls ;)

Running with thousands of your closest friends ;)

So that's one of my life's distractions. We all have them and we all deserve them. You may not be up for running a marathon but going out for a nice walk or short run doesn't take alot of time. Next time you need some incentive to go out, why dont you walk the streets near you with the goal of checking out the beautiful flowers gardens, balconies or paint colours on the houses for inspiration for your own home. I guarantee it will make your walk or run go by quicker and you'll have picked up some new fresh.fabulous.sophisticated design inspiration.

I hope you make the time this week for your life's distractions. You deserve it!

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Welcome to KEEP IT BEAUTIFUL DESIGNS! If you love home design, DIYs, fashion, travel & tips then this is your spot! Join me as I share the journey of renovating our 100 year old home in Ottawa, ON to create beautiful spaces to raise our 3 small children and be house proud. Small or big, all spaces deserve to be beautiful and functional for real life and with real life budgets. Oh and did I mention that I love a fabulous bottle of red!